MUMMY, DEER: Biological samples found with Ötzi’s corpse may help researchers reveal more about the species with which he shared his Copper Age ecosystem.© SOUTH TYROL MUSEUM OF ARCHAOLOGY/EURAC/SAMADELLI/STASCHITZMany millennia ago, a springtime hike over the Italian Alps ended in murder. The victim, a man approximately 45 years old, lay face down in a glacier, an arrowhead buried in his shoulder, his gear—an axe, quiver, knife, and bags containing berries—scattered around him. Packed in ice, his body and personal effects had remained preserved for more than 5,000 years when two modern-day hikers stumbled across the scene in 1991.
Since the discovery of this mummy, the Tyrolean iceman nicknamed Ötzi has been spilling secrets from the past. Beyond his obvious archaeological significance, bits of grass, meat, and fur from Ötzi’s clothes and tools are opening a window on the ecosystems in which he lived and traveled.
Shortly after its discovery, Franco Rollo of the University of Camerino collected a few hundred milligrams of animal hair found on the mummy. On an expedition launched in the summer of 1992, researchers used steam jets and hot air blowers to melt vast quantities of ice in the rock gully where the mummy was recovered, according to Rollo’s collaborator Stefania Luciani, an associate professor at the university. The melted water was filtered to gather nearly 400 fragments of ...
